Tuesday’s Bumper Sticker
Floofpuccino
Floofpuccino (floofinition) – 1. A pet with coffee and cream fur. 2. A cappuccino with pet fur found in it.
In use: “Her eyes were bright blue but with her markings, the friendly little stray cat was a foamy floofpuccino.”
Inspirational Quote # 1455
Nothing more to add.
Google Search Image Something Fundamental
His head was down against the silvery sunshine heat. Walking along, he looked up to orient his course and spotted Doctor Frank further up the white cement sidewalk.
He literally froze where he was. His heart beat – he felt it – but a shocked stupor held him stiff. Doctor Frank had died two months before. This had to be a doppelganger. He’d heard or read that everyone has an exact replica of themselves elsewhere on the world. This was the most perfect one he’d ever seen. The man was just like Doctor Frank, the biologist, in every aspect from his impish, good-natured expression, gray and white beard, and slender-as-a-broom frame to the outdoor pants, boots, and vest that were Doctor Frank’s regular attire, including the forest green bush hat.
He snapped out of it. The result put him up the sidewalk past where he’d spotted Doctor Frank, as if he’d never stopped. His head swooned. Pausing to regain control of his senses, he saw Q across the street, waiting to cross.
Now that was fucking impossible. Q’d died four years ago. Like Doctor Frank, doppelganger Q was an eerie ghost of his deceased friend. As he wondered what the what, he saw his mother-in-law, Jean, dead for the last two years, off to the left, with her husband, Carl, who’d been dead since 1992.
“Holy shit,” reverberated through his mind and came out his mouth. “What’s going on?”
In a blink, he realized all the color had deserted the world, as though he was watching a movie on an old black-and-white television. Closing his eyes to recover, he gasped; with his eyes closed, he could see everything taking place in color, except the dead folk that he saw weren’t there.
Slowly, he cracked his eyes open and took in the monochrome world. The sound differed from before. Swiveling his head, he saw more dead friends and relatives. It wasn’t his beloved hometown any longer, until he closed his eyes. With eyes closed, color was restored, and he was in the town where he’d been living and walking.
Keeping them closed, he resumed his walk. That seemed to work, but it was a temporary solution. Something fundamental had changed in his world.
He was going to have to open his eyes again sometime. And then…
He shook his head. He was going to keep his eyes closed until he was home. And then —
Well, he’d see.
Killing in the Name
Here’s an explosion from the past. One thousand musicians assembled and played Rage Against the Machine’s song, “Killing in the Name” (1992) in Frankfurt. Pretty damn good time for such a song. Repeat after me, “Now do as they told ya. Now do as they told ya.”
Hah. Now the outre:
“Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me.”
Repeat.
Louder.
LOUDER.
Rage against what’s going on and how the world is twisting. Stop the killing in the name. Insert whatever conclusion you want for the name – hate, nationalism, religion, money… There’s quite a list of absurd reasons for why people kill for you to select from.
Helmet Law
The young woman on the scooter was wearing a lavender helmet. It went well with her shiny purplish bikini and sandals.
Watching her pass, he gauged she was probably traveling thirty miles an hour on the twenty-five limit road. Most people drove thirty to thirty-five, with some hurrying on to forty. Two people had been killed on the road in the last ten years, so he worried about the unknown girl. A friend had been wearing a helmet when she crashed. Wasn’t on this road, granted, but she’d been going thirty miles an hour when she lost control. (Privately, he thought she was going faster because he’d seen her riding before, but she claimed she was doing thirty.) Despite wearing a denim shirt and cotton shorts, she’d suffered huge injuries on her back and legs when she slid along the asphalt road. Weeks of hospitalization followed, along with a year of treatment.
That’d been what a person wearing a shirt and shorts had suffered. As for a person without much of a top…
He shrugged. At least she was wearing a helmet.
Here We Go Again – A Microsoft Rant
Microsoft has done it again; they’ve “improved” their Word product.
Three features that I’ve grown used to are suddenly no longer functioning correctly after the latest MS “update”. As a writer, I liked the recently used files, pinned files, and the bookmarker that lets me pick up where I left off the last time that I was in a document. Stupidly of me, I like them so much that I trusted Microsoft to leave them as they are.
No.
I’ve been dealing with Microsoft products for over thirty years. Their updates and improvements regularly ripped up what I’m used to using, slowing me down, wasting time, and adding unnecessary aggravation.
My latest used files, according to MS Word, was in September of 2016. This is from a program that I use every day. The pinned files? All unpinned. Thanks, Microsoft. You’re a fucking peach.
After finding the files that I used yesterday, the bookmark for where I left off is absent. I know where I was working, etc., but what the hell?
Of course, I must laugh. I must release long, bitter peals of angry laughter because, while Microsoft taketh away and fouls things up, it urges me, “Look! Look at our bright, shiny, NEW stuff. We’re improved, not like the sucky old product that we used to be.”
- Why should I look at your new and improved shit when you just removed my normally used shit, Microsoft?
- Why can’t I keep using the old, sucky shit.
(And yes, I recognize that the MS Word features that I’d grown accustomed to using were themselves new features, once upon a time. It’s great that they created an provided them. But can’t they see how it builds distrust when they do this sort of crap? It’s like good ol’ Charlie Brown trusting Lucy to hold the bowl. She always pulls it away, and he keeps believing that THIS TIME it’ll be different. Then, Lucy, like Microsoft proves, nope, we fooled you again.)
It’s the world’s way, innit? Don’t know about that, but it sure as hell is the Microsoft way.
GRRR.
The Perverse Inverse Law of Hurrying
Have you ever noticed..?
You’re trying to hurry. You’re eager to get started or — shudder — you’re running late. Perhaps you overslept or ignored the alarm clock, or kept playing with your pet (and that’s not a euphemism). Maybe you can blame it on your computer – “Did you see today’s headlines?” – “I was this close to a new high score.”
Whatever the reason, cause, or excuse, do you see how it seems to cause everything to automatically go against your efforts to be quick? Lines form, traffic jams, the computer takes it time applying a gajillion updates, and the people ahead of you can’t find their credit card — debit card — cash — checkbook.
Your mind gets in on it. Suddenly you remember, “Damn it, I forgot my list,” and you need to retrace your steps, or you can’t find your keys/glasses/shoes —
Or the toilet stops up, and the water rises —
Or a car’s blocking your vehicle in.
It’s enough to make one scream.
Fourteen
A beard and mustache like smudges on the face
long and thick brown hair pinned up to play baseball
faded bell-bottom blue jeans with a large hole in the rear
and no undies underneath
white high-top canvas shoes
hand-painted fluorescent orange
a worn white tee-shirt with a green marijuana leaf in the center of the chest
under by a torn military fatigue shirt signed by everyone met
worn open like a jacket
quoting Asimov, Clapton, Kirk, and Clemente
reading Leary, Chekov, Dumas, Tolkien, Heller, and Knowles
listening to the Stones, Humble Pie, Cream, Jimi, Janis, and Bob
dancing to Sly, Chicago, Three Dog Night, and EW&F
runnin’, walkin’ and bikin’ to go anywhere and everywhere
through any weather and across any terrain
That’s the fourteen-year-old that I remember.
Michael Seidel, writer 